BANGKOK, April 21, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Asian crime networks running multi-
billion-dollar cyber scam centres are expanding their operations across the 
world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on 
Monday.

Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a 
year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other 
scams -- using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in 
squalid compounds.

The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar's lawless border areas and 
dubious "special economic zones" set up in Cambodia and Laos.

But a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the 
networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle 
East, Europe and some Pacific islands.

"We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organised crime 
groups," said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Acting Regional Representative for 
Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

"This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new 
ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks 
should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia."

Countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber 
fraud in 2023, the UNODC report said, adding that "much larger estimated 
losses" were reported around the world.

The syndicates have expanded in Africa -- notably in Zambia, Angola and 
Namibia -- as well as Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.

- Laundering through crypto -

Besides seeking new bases and new victims, the criminal gangs are broadening 
their horizons to help launder their illicit income, the report said, 
pointing to team-ups with "South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, 
and Irish mob, among many others".

Illicit cryptocurrency mining -- unregulated and anonymous -- has become a 
"powerful tool" for the networks to launder money, the report said.

In June 2023 a sophisticated crypto mining operation in a militia-controlled 
territory in Libya, equipped with high-powered computers and high-voltage 
cooling units, was raided and 50 Chinese nationals arrested.

The global spread of the syndicates' operations has been driven in part by 
pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia.

A major crackdown on scam centres in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, 
led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen counrties being freed.

But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs' 
immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate 
swiftly.

"It spreads like a cancer," UNODC's Hoffman said.

"Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply 
migrate."

Alongside the scam centres, staffed by a workforce estimated by the UN to be 
in the hundreds of thousands, the industry is further enabled by new 
technological developments.

Operators have developed their own online ecosystems with payment 
applications, encrypted messaging platforms and cryptocurrencies, to get 
round mainstream platforms that might be targeted by law enforcement.